


the alcohol is scented with your breath

by readbetweenthelions



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Sloppy Makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:17:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1763915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readbetweenthelions/pseuds/readbetweenthelions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which tsukishima drinks a little too much and kuroo is a surprisingly decent person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the alcohol is scented with your breath

**Author's Note:**

> for tumblr user therestimetowaste, who wanted drunk kurotsukki makeouts. enjoy

Tsukishima is a little drunk – okay, _really_ drunk – and this place doesn’t look familiar at all. He’s never been here before. Makes sense, though, when he remembers that it’s Kuroo’s. An apartment off-campus, not Tsukishima’s shitty dorm room, and that’s nice at least.

The light is bright when Kuroo flicks it on. His other hand is touching the small of Tsukishima’s back, like they’re _boyfriends_ or something. Jesus, this is sickening. Tsukishima squeezes his eyes shut against the needling pain in his head from the light.

“You _are_ smashed, aren’t you?” Kuroo says. Things are certainly spinning.

“Do you have a roommate?” Tsukishima asks. Place is a little too big for one person. How could he afford rent…

“He’s not here tonight,” Kuroo says. He’s also drunk, though not quite at Tsukishima’s level. Admittedly, Tsukishima has drunk more than he should, though whether he would call it “too much” or not is debatable. At least he hasn’t thrown up.

The party they had been at was rowdy, at the home of some mutual acquaintance of theirs and to which Tsukishima had been invited sort of last minute. He had not been expecting Kuroo there. Sure, he knew they went to the same college, and sometimes he’d see him, racing across campus on that stupid longboard of his – God, what an asshole – but they hadn’t spoken in the semester and a half since Tsukishima had been here. It’s not like they shared any classes or did any of the same things – not anymore, anyway. And there he was, leaning against the wall with some drink in his hand, locking eyes with Tsukishima over the beer pong table. The acquaintance who had invited him had pushed a round or two of shots on Tsukishima, which he had taken gladly. After all, this _was_ the reason he was here; to get drunk.

At some point during the night, much farther into it than just those first shots, Kuroo had appeared next to a slightly teetering Tsukishima with a hand on his arm. “Long time no see, hey, Tsukki?” Kuroo had said. His voice was muffled in Tsukishima’s ear under the noise of the party.

“Yeah,” Tsukishima had said, rankling at the old nickname, which no one here called him by. Except, he guesses, for Kuroo.

Kuroo. Fucking _Kuroo_ , who always had that cool expression on his face and acted like he owned the place. It had been a couple of years since they’d spoken, since the last time they’d played each other in high school. Tsukishima was several centimeters taller now, having grown a bit during high school, now finally looking down at Kuroo from more than a centimeter or two’s difference.

Kuroo stuck to him all night – well, more like he dragged Tsukishima along with him. Kuroo was popular, he knew people, and people liked him. And here was Tsukishima, just some unknown freshman at this party with hardly anyone he knew. Kuroo kept introducing him as Tsukki, and Tsukishima kept reintroducing himself with his proper family name, though if he had to guess he’d say that most of these people, if they remember him at all, are going to remember the nickname. Tsukishima cursed Kuroo for that.

This was not Tsukishima’s first party since coming to college, and certainly not his first time being drunk. He was a little drunker than anticipated, though, by the time the party started winding down. He wanted to kiss someone, though that was a common side-effect of drinking for Tsukishima, wanting to kiss someone. Kuroo’s hand kept brushing his skin and he kept his eyes on Tsukishima more than anything else in the house, even friends who called his name and girls who flirted and people who offered drinks here and there. Tsukishima had sort of been Kuroo’s protégé once. Was that what this was? Was Kuroo intending for that to happen again, this time away from volleyball and on a more social scene? Or maybe not. Maybe it’s something else. Tsukishima wants to kiss someone, and he kind of wants that someone to be Kuroo.

There is a hallway that leads to a staircase up to the second floor – off limits, for tonight – on one end, and to a bathroom on the other. All night this hallway has been packed, but people are starting to leave, and now Kuroo and Tsukishima are the only ones in it. Tsukishima leans with his back against the wall, facing towards the bathroom door. Kuroo is standing in front of him. A little close, Tsukishima thinks. Hmm…

“Kuroo,” Tsukishima says. He could hear his own voice, thick with the alcohol, but didn’t really care.

“What?” Kuroo says.

Tsukishima grabs Kuroo’s wrist and pulls him closer, steadying him with a hand on Kuroo’s cheek, and kisses him. It feels good, through the heaviness of Tsukishima’s limbs and the spinning, drowsy feeling of being drunk. Kuroo’s tongue licks gently at Tsukishima’s lower lip, and Tsukishima parts his lips, their tongues sliding against each other. Kuroo tastes like the rum and Cokes he’s been drinking all night, and Tsukishima doesn’t even want to think about what he probably tastes like himself, so he doesn’t. He lets everything drain away except the feeling of his lips and tongue against Kuroo’s and the warmth of Kuroo’s hand on his waist.

There’s a sound like heavy footsteps and someone laughing, and motion catches their eyes to their side, down the hallway, and they break apart. They both glance over, to see someone unfamiliar standing in the hallway, looking towards them. They still stand there, pressed close to each other, with one of Tsukishima’s hands still on Kuroo’s wrists and one on his face and Kuroo steadying himself with a hand on the wall behind Tsukishima’s head and the other on Tsukishima’s waist. It would be embarrassing, if Tsukishima was capable of processing emotions at a normal speed right now. _I’m too drunk for this_ , he remembers thinking.

“Oops,” the guy says, “Sorry.” He slips into the bathroom behind Kuroo and closes the door. Tsukishima laughs, dryly and far away. It _is_ a little funny. He’d have laughed the same if he’d witnessed that scene just now instead of being a part of it.

“Listen,” Kuroo had said over the music and the chatter still left in the house. Tsukishima fixed his eyes on Kuroo’s face, though it was a bit of a difficult task. “Do you want to come back to my place?”

“What?”

“My place. My apartment. Come home with me.”

“Why?”

Kuroo looks at him askance and Tsukishima remembers. Right. The kiss. Kissing. That would be a reason to go home with someone, wouldn’t it? Well, maybe not _just_ the kissing, but what generally came after.

“Okay,” Tsukishima says. He’s a little surprised at himself, agreeing to do something like this with someone like Kuroo, who’s a bit of a childhood friend (if you can call high school childhood, and if you can call Kuroo a friend, and he’s not sure of either). Though he guesses if he had to be surprised at himself for anything, it would be initiating that kiss in the first place. Who even was he?

Kuroo shrugs. “Come on, then,” he says.

The two of them say their farewells to the hosts of the party and to a few of Kuroo’s friends.

Outside, in the cool night air, things feel different. Tsukishima starts to understand just how drunk he is – isn’t that always the way of things? – when he tries to stumble along next to Kuroo on the sidewalk in the darkness. Only now does he recognize how _hot_ it had been in that house, and he relishes the coolness for a little while, until it starts to make him shiver.

Kuroo’s apartment complex isn’t too far from the house they had just been at. Kuroo leads him up three flights of stairs to the top apartment – it’s at this point that he had put his hand on Tsukishima’s back, to steady him. _The drunk leading the drunker_ , Tsukishima had thought, and he’d laughed out loud. Kuroo didn’t bother asking him what was so funny.

Now, Tsukishima looks around Kuroo’s apartment. It’s typical of someone their age, of a couple of male college students still trying to figure out how to manage themselves. There are dirty clothes on the furniture and dirty dishes in the sink and everything kind of smells like boy, but it’s not a bad place. “Where’s your bedroom?” Tsukishima asks.

“Down the hall,” Kuroo answers. “You okay? Need the bathroom or anything?”

“I’m fine,” Tsukishima says, and aside from a little motor slowness, he is. He doesn’t feel sick, if that’s what Kuroo means.

Kuroo leads him down the hallway and into his bedroom. It smells like Kuroo, unsurprisingly, and is decorated in exactly the way Tsukishima would have expected, with posters of punk bands and everything in dark colors – or at least, that’s the way it looks in the darkness of the room. Kuroo closes the door behind him before turning to Tsukishima again.

“Looks just like you,” Tsukishima comments. “This place, I mean. Looks very _you_.”

“I know,” Kuroo says. Without warning he is kissing Tsukishima again, hands on his neck, body pressed close where it counts. _Kuroo is really hot,_ Tsukishima thinks. _Like, really._

“I wish you were still my height,” Kuroo says. Tsukishima’s lips graze his jaw, then his neck. “Taller guys aren’t usually my thing.”

“I’ve always been taller than you,” Tsukishima points out. Since they’d met, he meant. He’d been taller. He kisses a little lower on Kuroo’s neck, gets some of his own saliva from the previous kiss on his face, but ignores it.

“You used to be just a couple centimeters taller, it wasn’t a big deal, then.” Kuroo’s hands slip farther down on Tsukishima’s back, resting just above the waistband of his pants.

Why would it have even crossed his mind back when they were in high school, how tall Tsukishima was? Is he saying he wanted to… well, _be with him_ back then? “You thought about this? Back then?”

“Yeah, of course I did.” Tsukishima doesn’t really know what he means by “of course I did,” but he ignores it. “Lay down,” Kuroo demands.

Tsukishima does, lying flat on his back on Kuroo’s bed. It’s soft and it feels remarkably good to be horizontal, to not have to support his own body weight. He almost sighs with the relief of it. Kuroo sits on top of him, straddling him. His breath feels hot on Tsukishima’s neck, and he moves closer to it. Kuroo’s lips kiss his neck and Tsukishima raises his hands to rest them on Kuroo’s low back, slipping under the fabric of his shirt to press flush to Kuroo’s skin.

Kuroo kisses with _teeth_ , but Tsukishima likes it, the gentle scraping of Kuroo’s teeth on the soft skin of Tsukishima’s lips. Tsukishima can hear his heartbeat in his ears and his own quiet moans, far away through the haze of alcohol.

Tsukishima slides his hands a little lower, until his fingers slide under the waistband of Kuroo’s pants. Kuroo, for his part, grinds his hips hard against Tsukishima’s. The friction feels fantastic, little shock of pleasure, and Tsukishima longs for more. He twitches his hips up, letting himself grind back against Kuroo.

Tsukishima can feel himself growing hard, and he takes a short break from kissing Kuroo to catch his breath. Instead, Kuroo kisses at his neck.

“You’re sensitive, aren’t you?” Kuroo asks, head bent far enough down that Tsukishima can’t see his face. Tsukishima fights against the heaviness of his limbs imposed by the alcohol, trying not to let himself relax and completely give himself over to Kuroo. He wants to be present for this – or as present as he can be at the moment.

He doesn’t really have a retort for Kuroo’s last comment. “Yeah,” he says. He lifts his head to kiss Kuroo’s neck, sucking a little at the spot as he does so.

“Hey,” Kuroo says, leaning away just a little bit. “No marks.”

“Sorry.” Tsukishima lays his head back and looks up at Kuroo.

“How drunk _are_ you?” Kuroo asks.

“Very,” Tsukishima answers. God, kissing Kuroo feels so good. He reaches down between them, fighting with the buckle of Kuroo’s belt with clumsy fingers. He _wants_ him, wants to do him _right now_ , wants to –

“Hey,” Kuroo says. “Stop.”

Tsukishima stops his hands on Kuroo’s belt and looks up at him. “Hm?”

Kuroo, for his part, looks down and straight into Tsukishima’s eyes. “Look, you’re drunk, I’m drunk,” he says. Tsukishima can’t really tell what kind of expression is on his face in the darkness, but it isn’t his usual smirk. “If you… if you still want to do this tomorrow, after you’ve sobered up, then we will. But right now…”

Tsukishima leans his head back, letting the pillow support the curve of his neck, and closes his eyes as he considers. He wants Kuroo, wants him right now. But… Kuroo’s probably right. He’s probably drunk enough to do something he’ll regret. It’s good of Kuroo to stop him. But when did Kuroo become a good person, anyway?

Tsukishima opens one eye and looks up at Kuroo. “When did _you_ grow a conscience?”

“I’ve always had one,” Kuroo answers. “You just weren’t looking.”

Maybe that’s true. Tsukishima lays back and stares at the ceiling. He’s right, he knows. Tsukishima is still drunk and while he is certain he will remember this in the morning, he’s not certain he won’t regret it.

“We can still make out, if you want,” Kuroo says. “Just… nothing more than that.”

“God, I thought you’d never ask.”

They kiss for a long time, or what seems like a long time to Tsukishima, with Tsukishima’s fingers running through Kuroo’s hair, gripping at the back of his head to press him closer, and Kuroo’s fingers pressing into the skin of Tsukishima’s waist. Eventually the kisses grow lazy and the touches slow and Tsukishima can feel the lethargy of alcohol dragging at him.

“I’m tired,” Tsukishima says, Kuroo’s lips on his neck.

“Me too.”

“Let’s just. Let’s just sleep, then.”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

“I’m going to pee first.”

“Go for it. It’s at the end of the hall.”

Tsukishima extricates himself for Kuroo, leaving him lying on his bed. Standing is a little more of a difficult task when you’re trying to go zero to sixty while already drunk, instead of just maintaining standing as you work up to the drunkness. Tsukishima stumbles to the bathroom and flicks on the light – _God_ , it’s bright – and urinates, leaning over the toilet to brace himself with one arm on the wall behind. It’s incredible how drunk he still is. It should have worn off a little by now, surely. Maybe they hadn’t been kissing for as long as he thought it had been, or maybe (and this was the more likely option) he had been drunker than he had originally thought. Either way, he finishes up and heads back to Kuroo’s room.

“Do you mind if I…” Tsukishima asks him. He tries to make a motion that indicates he’d like to not wear his jeans to bed, but he isn’t sure it’s very clear.

“Hmm?”

“I don’t want to sleep in my jeans.”

“Okay.”

Tsukishima takes it for permission and strips down to his shirt and boxers, leaving the jeans in a small pile by Kuroo’s bed. He slips under Kuroo’s covers without a second thought.

“This isn’t weird, is it?” Tsukishima says, noticing the comforter against his bare legs.

“You were like five seconds away from having sex with me,” Kuroo answers. “I don’t think this is that weird.”

“Okay.”

It really does feel fantastic to be lying down. Tsukishima’s eyes droop – why didn’t he notice he was this tired? – and he nestles his face into the pillow.

“Hey, Kuroo?” Tsukishima says into the darkness.

“Hmm?” Kuroo says. His voice is quiet, sort of far-away, though Tsukishima can’t tell if it’s because he’s still trashed or because Kuroo might be falling asleep, or something.

“I always thought you were attractive. I mean we were just stupid high school kids, but you were… like… you thought you were so _cool_ , I hated it,” Tsukishima says, words muffled a little bit by the pillow as he tries to talk from the side of his mouth. He doesn’t usually talk this much, but it’s another thing that happens when he drinks. He gets talkative. “Well, I thought I hated it. And you tried to treat me like your little… like some kind of apprentice, or something. I hated it, but I mean, I didn’t really like _anything_ , back then, really. You were hot but I didn’t like you, or like, I thought I didn’t. I mean, you’re still hot. …Turns out I kind of like you, I guess.”

Kuroo snorts. “I kind of like you, too.”

“Damn you.”

“What’s that for?”

“For making me like you, even though you’re an asshole.”

“That’s harsh, Tsukki.”

Tsukishima almost asks him not to call him that, but he doesn’t. It kind of reminds him of home, of Yamaguchi and his teammates at Karasuno and his little hometown, which was the only place he’d ever been called that, except here with Kuroo. “Why did you…?” Tsukishima asks instead. “Back then, I mean. Why did you like, take me under your wing, and all that shit?”

Tsukishima feels the mattress shift a little as Kuroo shrugs. “I don’t know. I kinda wanted to show you that you could _do_ stuff, if you tried.”

“Why’d you care?”

“Dunno.”

“I think you _do_ know.”

“Maybe I thought you were cute.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, I told you. I kinda wanted to get with you.”

Distantly, Tsukishima remembers Kuroo saying he’d “thought about this,” while they were kissing, just before Kuroo had pushed him down on the bed and…

“You’re into me!” Tsukishima says. He’s grinning into the pillow, but Kuroo can’t see it.

“Yeah, stupid, I am.”

“You had feelings first, then. I win.”

“You’re an idiot, that’s not how this works.”

Tsukishima laughs, and finds he doesn’t have the energy to continue the conversation.

“Goodnight, Kuroo,” he says. Clumsily, Tsukishima takes his glasses off and puts them on Kuroo’s nightstand.

“Goodnight, Tsukki.”

Tsukishima kicks him gently before settling down fully. He drifts to sleep in no time at all.

To his dismay, however, Tsukishima wakes up the next morning with a raging headache and a slowness in every muscle and a tongue that feels like sandpaper. _Fuck_ , he is _so_ hung over. He reaches over and puts on his glasses. He can see better, but he isn’t sure he wants to. He kind of just wants to go back to sleep.

Where is Kuroo? He was here only a moment ago… well, he was here last night. As if in answer to his thoughts, there’s a sound from the kitchen that sounds like a pan being set on the stove. Oh, thank God. He’s making food.

Tsukishima staggers out of Kuroo’s room to see what he’s making. When he reaches the kitchen, the light from the sun outside pierces his head like… well, he’s too miserable to think of an analogy. Horrifyingly, Kuroo looks bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as he stands by the stove. He catches sight of Tsukishima and grins.

“You look like shit, dude,” Kuroo says. His voice is clear and energetic for this hour of the morning, though Tsukishima doesn’t know exactly which hour that is. It feels early, that’s all he knows.

“Yeah,” Tsukishima says. “I feel like a fucking walking dumpster. I feel terrible.”

Kuroo laughs, hopefully at Tsukishima’s description and not at his abject misery. “Well, that sucks,” Kuroo says. “Glad I’m not you.”

“You’re not hung over?” Tsukishima asks. Everything about his body feels slow and _Jesus_ does he wish this headache would go away. “You’re not hung over _at all?_ ”

“No, I drank water, like I should have,” Kuroo says. “No one’s ever told you drinking water when you drink keeps hangovers away?”

“No.”

“See, you’re still my protégé. You learn new stuff from me every day.”

“Shut up.”

Kuroo fills him a glass of tap water and slides it across the counter to Tsukishima. He drinks it in slow sips, letting it relieve the dry feeling of his mouth and the soreness in his throat.

“About last night,” Kuroo says. Tsukishima groans into the cup. Last night… he shouldn’t have been so stupid. He had _definitely_ drunk too much.

“What about it?” Tsukishima asks.

“I just thought,” Kuroo says, “You might want to talk about it.”

Tsukishima sighs. They hadn’t actually hooked up, and it’s not like he was _embarrassed_ , but he wasn’t really expecting to have to talk about it with him afterwards.

“You said some pretty weird stuff, you know,” Kuroo says. He’s grinning. Fuck that.

“Yeah?” Tsukishima says defensively. He remembers what he said, mostly, but he wants to know what stuck in Kuroo’s mind from last night. He wasn’t embarrassed of trying to hook up with Kuroo, but he _was_ embarrassed of drunkenly confessing _feelings._ “Like what?”

“You said you liked me.”

“You’re an idiot,” Tsukishima says. “Of course I _like_ you, I wouldn’t have tried to hook up with someone I didn’t like.”

“Yeah, well, about _that_ ,” Kuroo says. “Do you still want to?”

“Right now?” Tsukishima says. The pounding in his head is not likely to go away anytime soon, and his mouth feels like a desert despite the glass of water still clutched in his hand.

“Whenever.”

Tsukishima looks at him, thinking. Honestly? Yeah, he does want to have sex with Kuroo. Maybe not now, while his hangover is raging, but maybe after he drinks some water and eats something and takes like a dozen aspirins, maybe. He’s thinking much more clearly now than he had been last night, but yeah, he definitely still wants Kuroo. “Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

Kuroo smiles again.

With a gentle hand on Tsukishima’s jaw, Kuroo kisses him. It’s not really like last night at all, just a light, sweet kiss, but it’s… well, nice. It’s over quickly.

“Your breath is terrible,” Kuroo says. He pulls away and looks at Tsukishima.

“Yeah, well, I feel like shit,” Tsukishima answers. “It’s the least of my concerns. You have any mouthwash?”

“In the medicine cabinet.”

Tsukishima leaves the kitchen and uses Kuroo’s mouthwash. Afterwards, he remembers his pants-less state and retrieves his jeans from Kuroo’s room. He slips his phone – dead from going uncharged all night – into his pocket and heads back out to the kitchen.

“Breakfast,” Kuroo says, motioning to a plate sitting on the counter. It’s a piece of toast, a couple eggs, nothing fancy – Tsukishima takes it anyway, and sits with it on Kuroo’s couch. When Kuroo has finished frying his own eggs he sits next to Tsukishima. They eat in silence, which under normal circumstances might have been awkward, but Tsukishima’s head is still pounding and his throat is hoarse and he kind of wants to go back to bed, so maybe it’s best that no one is saying anything for the time being.

“Well,” Tsukishima says, “thanks for letting me stay the night.” He approaches the door of Kuroo’s apartment.

“You don’t have to leave,” Kuroo says. He looks over the back of the couch to where Tsukishima stands.

“I’m going to go home and shower,” Tsukishima says. He hesitates for a moment, then adds, “Look. Do you want to maybe… I don’t know… go get some dinner tonight, or something?”

Kuroo cocks an eyebrow. “What, like a date?”

“What?” Tsukishima says, almost trying to play it off, as if on reflex. But that’s not what he wants to do. He actually _does_ want to go on a date with Kuroo, as sappy and disgustingly _romantic_ as that sounds, and he definitely does want to hook up with him after for real this time. “Well… yeah. Yeah, like a date.”

Kuroo stands and deposits his plate on the counter before crossing the room to stand in front of Tsukishima. “Alright,” he says. “Dinner at seven, then.”

“Okay.”

Kuroo reaches up a little to wrap his arms around the back of Tsukishima’s neck. He kisses him, deep and hot and mostly without tongue. Tsukishima’s hands drop to Kuroo’s hips before he even notices what’s happening.

“See you tonight,” Kuroo says, pulling away much too soon for Tsukishima’s liking.

“Yeah,” Tsukishima says. “Well. Bye.” Kuroo watches him as he opens the door, steps out, and shuts it behind him.

Tsukishima leaves Kuroo’s apartment and heads back to his dorm with a feeling of excitement. He’s actually looking forward to that date. How awful. Tsukishima grins to himself and doesn’t stop for a very long time.


End file.
